Aftershock Quotes

“Bang," Otto said as he simultaneously triggered the detonators in all of the helicopter's remaining missiles.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Was that a Raven joke?’ Otto asked. ‘I can never tell.’

‘Oh, you can always spot my jokes, Mr Malpense,’ Raven said with a cold smile. ‘They’re the ones where you die laughing.’

‘Point taken,’ Otto said with a slightly nervous smile.

‘She seems to be . . . dare I say it . . . in a good mood,’ Nigel said as Raven walked back towards the cockpit.

‘Kinda scary, isn’t it,’ Shelby said. ‘It’s a bit like a shark smiling.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“What?’ Otto said as he finished soldering one of the contact points on the device in front of him. ‘It’s not like we’re being trained to follow the rules here. If anything, I think Nero should reward us for our determination and initiative.’

‘Can you fit “determination and initiative” on a headstone?’ Laura asked as she leant in to examine Otto’s handiwork.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“That’s OK, you can act as a diversion,’ Shelby grinned. ‘The ten minutes that it takes Raven to catch you will be ten minutes she’s not searching for me. I want that twenty-four hour record and every little helps.’

‘And the selfless spirit of teamwork continues to burn brightly at H.I.V.E.,’ Otto said. ‘You know, it’s actually quite moving.’

‘Hey,’ Shelby said, ‘it’s not my fault you’re the slowest zebra.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“I am having nightmares about sitting my exams naked,’ Franz said with an earnest expression as he sat down across from them. ‘Most disturbing.’

‘If it’s any consolation I have nightmares about Franz sitting exams naked too,’ Shelby whispered to Laura. ‘One’s where I’m sat at the desk right behind his.’

‘Oh, thanks very much for that mental image. Especially when I’m trying to concentrate,’ Laura said.

‘Thing is,’ Shelby whispered, ‘in the dream he’s really nervous because of the exam and so he’s sweating a lot.’

‘OK, I am really not listening to you any more,’ Laura said, grimacing.

‘It gets worse because then he . . .’ Shelby leant over and whispered something in Laura’s ear.

‘Is Laura OK?’ Wing asked Otto quietly on the other side of the cluster of desks. ‘She appears to have suddenly gone quite pale.’

Otto looked over at Laura who was now repeatedly hitting Shelby with one of her notepads. Shelby meanwhile was laughing uncontrollably at the look of pure disgust on Laura’s face.

‘Shelby Trinity, there is something seriously wrong with you,’ Laura said, shaking her head.

‘You know, I am thinking Laura is struggling to be coping with the stress of the exams,’ Franz said sadly as he watched Laura rubbing at her temples as if desperately trying to erase something from her brain.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Missing you already,’ Otto said as Shelby hurried after Laura. ‘Or it might just be stomach cramps, it’s hard to tell, to be honest.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“I don’t really want to have to review the safety procedures for your department yet again, Professor. Especially when you’ve been doing so well with the departmental fatalities.’

‘Only three this year!’ the Professor said, smiling happily before noticing the look on Nero’s face. ‘Which is, of course, three too many.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Laura Brand, that is one of the most dishonest and devious things you have ever suggested,’ Otto said. ‘I love it!”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Yeah, I think that Raven woman must not have been too pleased when I tasered her,’ Penny replied with a lopsided grin.

‘You are tasering Raven!’ Franz said slightly too loudly as he sat down on the sofa. ‘This is not being a clever thing to do.’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Nigel said as he sat down next to Franz. ‘Glad to see that you still have all your limbs at least.’

‘I doubt that Raven would have resorted to dismemberment except under circumstances of extreme provocation,’ Wing said with a slight frown.

‘I was jok— Never mind,’ Nigel said, rolling his eyes.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“l. ‘I don’t really want to have to review the safety procedures for your department yet again, Professor. Especially when you’ve been doing so well with the departmental fatalities.’

‘Only three this year!’ the Professor said, smiling happily before noticing the look on Nero’s face. ‘Which is, of course, three too many.’

‘A certain level of staff and student mortality is to be expected, Professor,’ Nero said, ‘but it’s best if we can try and avoid it where possible. Colonel Francisco was extremely lucky.’

‘Yes, he seemed rather angry when I saw him,’ the Professor said with a frown. ‘He said that it was a good job he was sitting down when it happened. I suppose it must have been quite a shock for him.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Suddenly he felt his foot catch on something and he stumbled over one of the trailing cables that lay across the laboratory floor. The cable went tight and pulled one of the instruments monitoring the beam over, sending it falling sideways and knocking the edge of the frame that held the refractive shielding plate in position. For what seemed like a very long time the stand wobbled back and forth before it tipped slowly backwards with a crash.

‘Take cover!’ Professor Pike screamed, diving behind one of the nearby workbenches as the other Alpha students scattered, trying to shield themselves behind the most solid objects they could find. The beam punched straight through the laboratory wall in a cloud of vapour and alarm klaxons started wailing all over the school. Professor Pike scrambled across the floor towards the bundle of thick power cables that led to the super-laser, pulling them from the back of the machine and extinguishing the bright green beam.

‘Oops,’ Franz said as the emergency lighting kicked in and the rest of the Alphas slowly emerged from their hiding places. At the back of the room there was a perfectly circular, twenty-centimetre hole in the wall surrounded by scorch marks. ‘I am thinking that this is not being good.’

Otto walked cautiously up to the smouldering hole, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the beam emitter that was making a gentle clicking sound as it cooled down.

‘Woah,’ he said as he peered into the hole. Clearly visible were a series of further holes beyond that got smaller and smaller with perspective. Dimly visible at the far end was what could only be a small circle of bright daylight.

‘Erm, I don’t know how to tell you this, Franz,’ Otto said, turning towards his friend with a broad grin on his face, ‘but it looks like you just made a hole in the school.’

‘Oh dear,’ Professor Pike said, coming up beside Otto and also peering into the hole. ‘I do hope that we haven’t damaged anything important.’

‘Or anyone important,’ Shelby added as she and the rest of the Alphas gathered round.

‘It is not being my fault,’ Franz moaned. ‘I am tripping over the cable.’

A couple of minutes later, the door at the far end of the lab hissed open and Chief Dekker came running into the room, flanked by two guards in their familiar orange jumpsuits. Otto and the others winced as they saw her. It was well known already that she had no particular love for H.I.V.E.’s Alpha stream and she seemed to have a special dislike for their year in particular.

‘What happened?’ she demanded as she strode across the room towards the Professor. Her thin, tight lips and sharp cheekbones gave the impression that she was someone who’d heard of this thing called smiling but had decided that it was not for her.

‘There was a slight . . . erm . . . malfunction,’ the Professor replied with a fleeting glance in Franz’s direction. ‘Has anyone been injured?’

‘It doesn’t look like it,’ Dekker replied tersely, ‘but I think it’s safe to say that Colonel Francisco won’t be using that particular toilet cubicle again.’ Franz visibly paled at the thought of the Colonel finding out that he had been in any way responsible for whatever indignity he had just suffered. He had a sudden horribly clear vision of many laps of the school gym somewhere in his not too distant future.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“I must admit though that I too, like Shelby, find the prospect of this Hunt intriguing.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s all well and good for you wannabe ninjas,’ Otto said with a smile. ‘Some of us actually don’t find the idea of being chased through the wilderness by Raven and a bunch of G.L.O.V.E. goons particularly exciting.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock

“Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. It was just a bit weird to see Tom and Penny again,’ Otto said with a sigh. ‘It just seems so long ago, you know, life before this place. Sometimes I feel like I’m never going to see the real world again. That I’m never going to leave. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Of course I do,’ Laura said. ‘I’m sure we all feel like that sometimes but there’s going to be a life after H.I.V.E. you know. For all of us.’

‘Assuming we survive till then,’ Otto said with a wry smile.

‘Well, there is that,’ Laura said, ‘although it’s been several months since anyone tried to kill us so that has to be a good sign.’

‘And yet here we are working on a device that will probably end up getting us killed. It’ll either explode or Doctor Nero will catch us with it. Either way we’re dead,’ Otto said cheerily.

‘I’ll have you know that there’s a remarkably low chance of this exploding,’ Laura said with mock indignation. ‘If you’d designed it on the other hand, well, then we might as well be playing hopscotch in a minefield.’

‘Ouch, suppose I asked for that,’ Otto said with a grin.”
― Mark Walden, Aftershock